Get Andy to maximum independence

£18,108
of £25,000 goal

Andy is a 42 year old husband, married to Charlotte for 18 years and with 3 children; Lauren, 15, Katie, 12 and Nathan, 5. Andy had been self employed from 1995 until 2013 when he was diagnosed with an 8 inch tumour within his spinal cord running from the top of his neck to the top of his chest. The only way to remove his and stop it growing further, towards his brain, was to operate and remove it. Andy had the operation in August 2013 and it lasted 16 hours. Andy went into intensive care but had life-threatening complications of pneumonia and sepsis and the following week we, his family, were told to prepare for the worst. Thankfully he survived that weekend but has to live with the devastating consequences. These include paralysis from the neck down, night-time ventilator dependence and speech and swallowing difficulties which mean he needs round-the-clock specialised care. Andy has been away from the family home for 2 years spending the first 18 months in hospitals, only receiving specialist spinal injury rehabilitation for the last 4 months of that time and then being discharged to the community since March 2015.

Andy then moved back to the family home in June 2016 and we've all been adjusting to each other and a 24hr care team and in all these adjustments we are begining to realise what we need to do to improve Andy's life quality and so we are now fundraising for the equipment and /or changes needed to enhance Andy's quality of life and encourage/promote his independence.

My last update was to tell you all about some of the stuff we are needing and want to fundraise for so i decided to do my own challenge to fundraise so I've decided to do a dual fundraiser; I'm doing a swim challenge for a spinal charity called Aspire - www.aspire.org.uk - the challenge being called the Aspire channel swim - www.aspirechannelswim.co.uk - to raise money for them because they helped us tremendously through the welfare officer, and also to raise money to go towards our bed/recliner massage chair.
If you would like to help raise funds for Andy's massage chair then please donate here, stating its for the chair/bed and if you would like to donate to Aspire then look on our blog for the link : www.blaggersblog.com

I've changed the title of the campaign and the description to reflect the change in our fundraising needs.
We are happily ensconced in our extension and rubbing along nicely with his care team but we have now identified areas we now need to work towards.
These include, in the foreseeable future:

The need for a shed for medical equipment as a lot of it is still stored at the company's offices and a hardstanding to put it on.

A more suitable driveway to park "Henry", Andy's van so that he can get in and out of it more comfortably as the current drive is not level and very gravelly.

A massage therapy bed using niagara therapy (a therapy he currently uses on his hands and recommended by his SCI OT - see www.niagaratherapy.co.uk ) This is really NOT cheap but has been medically certified to reduce pain, which would improve Andy's life quality exponentially.